If you can't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love someone else? Amen. I love myself therefore I forgive myself for being three weeks behind my promised RuCapping. I hate calling tv posts recaps, though that's the web's preferred terminology, because I'm not about to recount everything that happened. That's for the contestants themselves to do on reality television. That's the whole structure, right? Step 1: Talking head commentary on clip you're about to see from contestant involved. 2: What you actually see from the contest. Step 3: A recap of what you just saw via the same or different talking heads. Then the next day on the internet everyone who is not on the show recaps again. We're a very redundant pop culture, we are!
But I do feel bad for going AWOL because these three weeks of RuPaul's Drag Race were really movie friendly and you know how I love my TV at the Movies. After the jump brief notes on the queens forays into celebrity impersonation, horror movies, and off-key musicals.
6.3 SCREAM QUEENS
Your mother darns socks in hell!"
The queens starred in two short & stoopid slasher films "Drag Race Me To Hell" (black & white 60s with Psycho fonts) and "Drag Race Me To Hell 5" (color and totally awesome 80s). Ben de la Creme was funny as an old psycho lady but Darienne Lake gave great head (in a box) and won the challenge.
Name Dropping: Roller Boogie, Singin' in the Rain, Maggie Smith, Liza Minnelli, Sandra Dee, Linda Blair (well she was on the panel. You have to have for a horror fest!), Rick James, Diana Ross, Beyoncé, Leigh Bowery
Judges Panel: Adore Delano got the funniest quip rom RuPaul:
Raggedy Ann sure grew up to be a slut."
Lena Headey was an awesome judge, even cracking Ru up.
I adore Adore. She's kind of like a daughter I want to slap."
Losers: Vivacious sashayed away after a completely inept horror movie performance but Gia Gunn wins most loathsome for getting all judgy in her own ignorance -- she didn't understand 80s vernacular OR, more damningly, that movies used to be in black and white. Yeah, I died a little inside. How can people be that ignorant of things before they were born by the time they're in their 20s?
6.4 SHADE THE RUSICAL
This is the episode that pissed off the trans community because RuPaul loves terms they're not okay with like trannies and "shemales" but that was the mini-challenge and we're skipping ahead to the musical. Divided into two acts the first was (almost) professional with good voices the norm but sometimes its best to leave at intermission if you know what I mean. This was expected to be a showdown between Adore and Courtney since they both competed on the Idol franchise but Courtney won the night in a cute little nod to the Tony Awards. Ru opened an envelope and everything.
Guest Judge: Sheryl Lee Ralph from Broadway's Dreamgirls who told Trinity to put a cork in it. LOL. She actually spun it for good advice but Trinity was offended (more on that later)
Losers: April Carrion sashayed away, but Gia Gunn was again competing for Most Annoying in that she loves to parade it. "What's a Tony Award?" I rolled my eyes with Bianca. But she reveals she grew up doing kabuki theater in Japan which wins her cool points with me, as much as I hated to give her any. But Gia couldn't win that title this time because there was just too much damn competition. Trinity K Bonet and Laganja Estranja were in a fierce competition for the title with their super whiny thin-skinned self-absorption. Laganja was just awful in the "Untucked" portion. She had a sweet moment with her parents which she then pissed all over by assuming that the rest of the entire episode should be the queens fawning over her and discussing her moment again and again rather than moving on. This morphed into a wider utterly inane must-see argument about drag and who was being ignorant (no, too easy).
Bianca Del Rio is perfect. I need gifs of everything she does
It all led up to the greatest minimalist "read" (totally silent) since Willam's deliciously deadpan perfect "your tone seems very pointed right now" from Season 4. It consisted of Bianca speaking for all of us by merely throwing her arms out in a "duh" style shrug, a proxy-gesture for all of us, as nourishing to my viewing party as manna from the heavens. We erupted into peals of laughter and rewound it three times. It needs to be seen in motion and in context for full appreciation. Bianca is fast emerging as the star of the show.
6.5 SNATCH GAME
I will never fully understand why this is everyone's favorite episode each season because I usually find it cringe-worthy. But, yes, it has a certain rubber-necking appeal as the queen's trot out half-baked celebrity impersonations. In most cases this episode has undeniable winners and losers and that was as true as ever. Here's how I'd rank them from Best to Worst:
Wonderful
Ben as Maggie Smith (unexpected, brilliant)
Bianca as Judge Judy (perfect marriage of queen & celebrity)
Adore as Anna Nicole Smith
Pretty Good
Darienne as Paula Deen
Joslyn as somebody (I didn't understand who it was -- I don't do a lot of reality TV -- but she was funny)
Okay
Courtney as Fran Drescher
Oopsie
Milk as Julia Child (great choice, bad work)
Inexplicable Utter Disasters
Laganja as Rachel Zoe (weirdly talking like a epileptic gay robot)
Gia as Kim Kardashian but no different essentially than Gia
Trinity as Nicki Minaj (who literally did nothing but change her wig)
RuPaul seemed worried about Ben dela Creme's decision to do Maggie Smith but it was an original choice and she found ways to make every answer hilarious. Like Dame Maggie would ever be answering these stupid questions or understand any of them.
Losers: In the end the lipsynch was between Laganja and Gia so either way, I knew I would win. I felt utter joy even before Gia sashayed away
ADDENDUM
We're all caught up and hopefully you are to. Feel the relief!
Adore Delano changed her twitter background to Pizza. I ♥ her
Queen of Social Media
Due to my obsessive impulsiveness I've been tracking twitter follower gains for the queens as a sort of symbolic assessment of fan favor. I'm not counting pre-show followers (Courtney Act still leads there having had 15,000 before the show ever aired since she was a big deal on Australian Idol) but gains over the course of the airing of the show. The current rankings of the past three weeks go like so:
- Bianca Del Rio + 9000ish
- Courtney Act + 5,600ish
- Adore Delano + 5,400ish
...do you think they'll be the unholy trinity come the finale? - Ben dela Creme + 5,216
- Milk + 4,779
- Joslyn Fox + 2,675
- Darienne Lake + 2220
- Trinity K Bonet + 1804
- Laganja Estranja + 1230
The queens that have shantayed away have been amassing fans too since not everyone watches shows as they air. In the past few weeks the 5 who've already left have also gained followers -- albeit at a much slower rate once they're off the air -- in this order from top to bottom: April Carrion, Gia Gunn, Vivacious, The Kelly Mantle, and Magnolia Crawford.
Are you watching or did I just waste a shitload of time typing this up?